A very interesting number emerged over the last few days. It’s a real mind-concentrator, and it goes like this: while net National Insurance receipts this fiscal year are forecast to be £106bn, benefit payments will be not less than £207bn.

In round figures, this means that Westmonster must either cut benefits on all fronts by 50%, or find new ways to raise the difference. The pols will not find new ways because they don’t do big new ideas: they will instead look for new ways to tax us.

None of this is original observation, but it is a small part of what will be, I’m sure, a mega-trend during this decade and thereafter: people avoiding any and all utility/tax cost increases by making their own arrangements. If it takes off on a big enough scale, then government in the UK is going to find itself starved to perhaps a greater degree than it has yet understood. So too will the privatised suppliers suffer serious income fall-offs. And as water, food, gas, electricity, oil and petrol will only go up in price on the supply side, the room for price-cutting among those selling and distributing such things will be negligible.

In this sense, one could see a mad but nevertheless understandable need for taxes and utility prices to keep going up and up. This in turn would generate illegal consumption of life’s vital needs by those unable or unwilling to produce such things themselves. (Greeks cut off from the electricity supply already routinely call in the local spanner-man to switch it back on again: given that half of Athens is at it, there’s not much the utility companies can do).

For anyone in a rural location in the EU, for example, ‘going it alone’ requires an initial investment; but after that, doing without utilities and taxed items isn’t that hard. Well drilling is a major growth industry in France, as is geothermal heating at the top end. Two acres is more than enough to produce all the vegetable and eggs/milk required for a healthy diet, while protein can come from nut (and vitamin C from fruit) trees. Barter with farming neighbours can top that up with additional meat as necessary. Rivers have fish in them.

Even if geothermal heating is out for cost reasons, generators using wind power, solar panels storing hot water, and efficient roof-gutters, piping and below-ground storage can in turn add to the naturally occurring well water. Taxes on petrol can be avoided by anyone fit enough to ride a bike, or avoided completely by looking at electric automotive offerings where your own generator or storage system is doing the charging.

Council tax looks at first sight like something one can’t avoid, but that’s simply not true. Buy a large mobile home, order a bespoke bus-home conversion, or buy a Winnebago. No more grid bills, no more hotel bills, plenty of campsites, but above all….no Council tax.

Drop the landline phone and use it for internet via a digital TV reception deal. Keep mobile calls to a bare minimum, send texts and emails, and enlist with Skype: it’s free for direct screen-to-screen, and for ringing provider numbers, it represents a vast reduction in price.

And finally of course, there is the dreaded ‘direct’ tax. Draconian tax increases alongside falling incomes only ever produce one result: a huge increase in the black market cash economy. This will happen in the UK within two years at the most. The more desperate the State becomes for money, and the more services it cancels, the more tax evasion becomes a national sport.

Street markets, car boot sales, P2P networks and barter…all of them will be used by more and more people to evade declaring an income, and avoid VAT. Not that I am encouraging tax evasion, perish the thought: to do that, you see, is illegal. But an unenforcible tax law, for government, is worse than its abolition: you have all the collection overheads and little of the income.

Large utility companies, multiple grocers, retail bank deposits and Treasury incomes will all suffer…as must telecoms suppliers, durable retailers, car manufacturers and oilcos. Rural property and land prices will rise. Personal supply hardware sales will sky-rocket. Urban and suburban house prices could easily slump as limited cultivable land acts alongside rising local taxes as a double-whammy upon folks with less and less disposable income.

But perhaps most important of all, irresistible pressure will be applied to the political food chain. It will come from two sources: social unrest, and big business. If families can’t afford what they regard these days as the basics, they will cut up rough. If globalists and national multiples are dying on their feet, they will send in the lobbyists.

Gradually, policies will change, elites will be ejected, and more States will grasp that their continued existence as leeches on the citizen is far from guaranteed. It is for this and a thousand other reasons I am certain that credit-consumption-volume globalist capitalism will, in time, give way to a far more devolved model involving less emphasis on this mercurial thing ‘growth’.

Most developed countries will end up with economies powered variously by personal, mutualised, private or bank/bourse businesses….only in a much more evenly spread form than now, with less centralised government, and consequently with less power attaching to Might. But in the meantime – and we could easily be talking thirty years here – the greedy will attempt to make their insane model function. They will fail: but we are all in for a bumpy ride until such time as that failure is recognised.

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60 thoughts on “THE SATURDAY ESSAY: starving the omnivores”

Dear Tom I want to ask a question that seems quite mad and yet if you put govt policies together so far do make you wonder . The question is this . Does the govt want to kill off certain amount of the public ?

Consider this :

if you are out of work and claiming benefit you are not ill and a scrounger so. have benefits removed so since lack of jobs you starve and die

cuts in housing benefit means no rent paid you are evicted and homeless and can’t get job cos you have no address you suffer exposure and die

if in work you undergo occupational health and found unfit for work and are sacked .no job no rent no home you die

You are correct in the endgame, you are wrong with the method of choice. Google “Georgia Guidestones” to see the endgame. TPTB are attempting to lower the survival rate on almost any section of the citizenry that are not of the Elite, or are not of those 5% who are useful to the Elite. I used to think this could not possibly be true, but I now see that no other conclusion is possible, from the observed data. The NHS kills more people evey day, the illegal wars do the same (at the moment, only to foreigners) and incompetence of all kinds is unchecked.

The only amusing thing in all this (+1 to JW) is that if they are successful in removing 90 percent of the (so-called) useless mouths are removed, then who are the Elites going to tax, or use to consume their high-priced rubbish?

Old Soldier, you are frighteningly right. There were plans to wipe out 6,500,000 Souls, faking a false-flag nuclear attack by ‘aliens’ from outer space. Mercifully, this heinous plan has been crushed. Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s wife, Gutle Schnaper, stated, before her death…’if my sons did not want wars, there would be none.’ About time to subsitute ‘TPTB’ for the Illuminati. They do exist, as did their evil plan for a NWO.

Yes; TPTB are the Illuminati, are the upper echelon of Fremasonry, are the top Satanists. I just don’t say so very often, as most people aren’t fully awake, and go back to sleep at the first mention of this. I was told, in writing, that once I had reached a certain level in Rosicrucianism, that Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism were one and the same; and that “we serve the light, and his name is Lucifer”. In writing, mark you. About that time, my direct debit to belong to such an organisation got cancelled; somehow I felt I didn’t need to be a member, any more…

You are right and wrong about what ‘most people’ know Old Soldier.
You are right and wron about how many people are awake.

I know from direct personal experience that the NWO is Satanic.
I don’t give a toss who ‘switches off’ when I tell them. I told friends and famile of my experience to save myself; not them! Remaining silent is a choice. When I meet my maker I will not have to answer for that.

Lots more people than you may presume; know full well that our current society is utterly debased.
Lots of folk are aware that killing off huge numbers of the population is the current policy and will be accelerated year by year.
A know of GPs (not directly)who sign off on vaccines that are not injected. They know the truth.

I often imagine Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany were rather like modern Britain and the West…..everybody knows the truth and no-body knows the truth.

You fail to mention crime. People cannot live on £60/week Jobseekers, so they take that and then opt out of society by either blagging/fencing/shoplifting in addition to working for cash. Cash avoids tax/NI/VAT. Put some fake number plates on your car and off you go. Get caught, get a caution. Blag another scrap car and off you go again.

To be fair, almost nobody lives on the (now) £71/week. They nearly all get their rent and council taxes paid and all manner of individually small but cumulatively large benefits on the side, especially if they have kids. It isn’t easy, but then it’s meant to be a temporary safety net, nothing more permanent.

I’ve long given up trying to make conservatives see sense from a compassion point of view so I know try from an economic point of view; cutting JSA, Working Tax Credits (private sector wages subsidy), Child Tax Credit, Income Support, Housing Benefit (landlord subsidy) and Maternity pay sucks demand out of already fragile local economies since those on low incomes save very little of their incomes.

Judging by the tone of many irate anti-social security comments, I’d suggest that they mainly come from Baby Boomers. Now, the last thing I want to see is young played off against old, but the truth is that the Baby Boomer generation took all the benefits of the system their parents and grandparents fought for without lifting a finger (as a generation) to protect it. Where were the sharp elbowed middle classes when tuition fees were set at £9k a year? What grandparent wants to see their grandkids saddled with that millstone before they have even started work?

One thing that continues to sadden me is the level of ignorance about the reality of work for millions of people today – I’ll sum it up in three words: zero hours contract. And we are not just talking supermarket or labouring jobs. I teach English to foreign students, ALL my colleagues have to have a degree and at least one teaching qualification. ALL but two of my colleagues are on zero hours contracts. At my ”institution” middle class graduates are lucky if they can make £15k a year. Still, we must stay competitive mustn’t we?

I wonder if the more thinking older person realises that when the government talk about cutting ”welfare”, over 50% of the welfare budget is spent on pensions and the elderly.

I also wonder how this most selfish of generations expect their pensions to be paid if they take up JW’s proposals (which in many ways I have to say have much to recommend them) and the tax fall plummets.

Landline phone went ages ago can’t see the point of it. The thing on this though there is an underlying monopoly where the line rental itself will be the incur the largest rises. This has happed already sarcastically for water charge that was last year. Energy I reverted to an old way of living but even that will incur increased charges for the connection only soon and not the energy you use.

What happens and nobody notices and gets the likes of Jessops and Comets is the not needed items are removed and so the cycle starts again.

Like money that moves for best return so the debt moves to prevent it going bust.

It’s the landline that p*sses me. Last month there were 7 calls on it (average 5) for a total cost of £18 i.e., £2.60 per call, all local. I have BT internet and you have no option, you have to take the landline. It’s a tax I have to get rid of. We all have mobiles. Mine is a minimum £6 month deal supplemented with a Lycamobile PAYG for cheap overseas calls, 1p min to HK etc.

It’s not my website, but I’ve been using them for a few years with my landline for USA and Germany – no hidden charges I can find on my bill – seems to do what it says on the tin (never used it from my mobile but small print says ‘network charges apply’ so I just use it from my landline.)

HK is 2p per minute to landlines and mobile. The charges vary depending on country, usually calling a mobile costs more.

JW – I’ve been reading here for about six months, decided I needed to come out of the woodwork and finally make a comment. Ex Brummie here, just down and to the left of you in South Devon. I come here multiple times a day now – one of the best blogs I’ve found on the net.

Dump BT and the land line, go with Virgin. You don’t need a land line with Virgin and mobiles are just as good for receiving calls.
As John mentioned, skype is a great communication tool and free! as well as emails for none urgent contact.

Mmmm, there are a few steps before this, for one, even if you say to the utility companies that you no longer require their product along will come the ‘Standing charge’, which, will be unavoidable and enforceable by law, you will not be able to opt out. Another issue is, how many people could actually live in a caravan? surely not enough to make a significant difference, and if they could the Govt. will fill them with immigrants and they will pay the taxes under threat of repatriation if they don’t.
Now, what could make a difference, imagine people stop using their cars, these days they must still be insured when on a public highway, the Govt. just makes a slight change to compulsory cover wherever they are and they will be sold, as scrap mostly, that would reduce Govt. income dramatically and, furthermore if they stopped drinking and smoking that IMHO would truly be the end, the Govt. would not be able to continue to function.
So, folks, that’s how it could be done, sell your car, give up smoking and drinking, the loss of revenue would collapse the treasury.

Don’t think it will work. The Govt is already losing money because cars are more efficient. They will bring in mileage charges and force you to have a black box in the car so they can count the miles as you drive and perhaps even dock your bank account in real time. They should legalise marijuana and tax it!

I don’t know whether you know this, but the main reason for making marijuana illegal is that it was a powerful threat to the sisal rope-making trade. The fibre from hemp is far better than sisal for coarse fabric, rope and cordage. Do a little research on the subject (I don’t mean to be rude, just suggesting), and you will see that we are neglecting a very large and lucrative market.

In those days, they couldn’t give a stuff about the drug aspect, as most more powerful drugs were legal or easily obtainable in those days. They even used to drink anaesthetic ether at parties. (It tastes like Fisherman’s Friend sweets). I don’t recommend it, though, It’s highly inflammable and has the unfortunate effect of knocking people out, which was how the anaesthetic effect was discovered.

If your timescale is correct [I know it is only a SWAG so I won’t hold you to it] it means that my declining years are going to be spent in an ever more survival centric regime which is dying on its feet because it keeps giving people’s money to the Eu and foreign aid, it gives people’s money to those who have not contributed or have no intention of contributing.
In fact it gives away anyone’s money except that of its millionaire cabinet members. It imports cheap labour to supplant the indigenous low paid labour and the benefit system’s stupidity means that once on the roundabout it is bloody hard to get off without actually being poorer.
Jobs are a joke with the vast majority being part time where your employer expects more hours when they want and flexibility of the Nth degree or they’ll sack you and get some nice eastern european who will simply say yes when asked to bend over backwards.

The jobs are simply service industry anyway ‘cos we don’t make a whole lot except for greedy bankers [or something that rhymes with that], we’re still pumping kids through universities but now we’ve adopted the American intern system which was abolished by Abe Lincoln -slavery. With only a slight prospect of a job somewhere in the future and they have to live on fresh air until then or mam and da who are seeing their retirement plans slowly melt in the sun/wash away in the rain……..or perhaps shag their way into a job or do a Monica.

So much to look forward to.
Will the immigrants go home as it gets worse here?- doubt it. parts of the country look like somewhere east of the nile already, they’ll just expand it.
Perhaps go back to their origins to be better off? -only in my dreams
Will the eastern europeans go back as we slide into the pan? -fat chance
Will the Rumanians decide they’re better off at home? -no one is going to tell them its crap here and their own lot will be happy to see them go since most will be criminals.
Will the EU finally fall apart? Maybe, but by that time I guess everyone in europe [except the elite] will resemble refugees from Ruanda or Zimbabwe.

When are firearms going to be legalised again? My crossbows and longbows are a limiting factor…….

The fascists in Scotland are going to ban airguns this year. No compensation and hand them over like good compliant citizens. Meanwhile they are armed to the teeth right up to and including nukes. The future in Scotland is exceedingly dim.

However, re the nice eastern European. Immigration is affected by generational aspiration changes. The first generation strives for low pay, sending funds home. The second sees itself as entitled to more, and strives less. Living 10 to a house is not for them. The third is more or less part of the indigenous population. That means that more immigrants are needed to do the dirty jobs as each generation moves up society. And so on. We are on a treadmill which cannot be avoided unless some of the long time residents are willing to work at minimum wage jobs. I don’t think that will happen.

Never thought I’d hear you jump in the micro generation cart John, fair play. I’m less optimistic, elites are always better organized and resourced and will bring in the deputies to keep our oakie caravans on the road while we undercut each others labour for our next meal…

You are quite correct that the 60 year Social Democratic, all things for all men, welfare state is doomed. However a more likely scenario than a crumbling of the elites and vested interests you portray is dictatorship. It might be right or left wing, it matters not. The priority will be to maintain the power and privilege of the elites, political, business and Establishment. Civil disobedience might be tolerated for a short period, as per Greece, but that will not last, soon to be replaced with severe sanctions. Soon we will be faced with 1970s style society and government as per Eastern Europe or South America. Only when we have reached that point will the public’s attention be sufficiently concentrated to fight for our freedom and best interests, probably unsuccessfully.

Ah, kfc1404, this is true, but it makes little difference. The sheeple that currently go out to vote for the LibLabCon will not rebel, the people that don’t bother to vote will not rebel, only the ten per cent that actually decide British elections because they think for themselves are likely to get angry enough to do something about it. Look at Greece or Portugal or Spain, if the population were to be prepared to fight rather than just scream ‘it isn’t fair, you can’t do this’, there would be burning parliaments while politicians and plutocrats were hanging from lamp posts.

Because they and we are a disarmed and neutered society only when the police and armed services stop supporting the elites can there be any hope of meaningful change in the interests of the people or the country, as demonstrated in post USSR Eastern Europe. The elites will not willingly give up their privilege and the police, especially in Britain where they have been almost completely disconnected from the common/local community, will not hesitate to become a British gestapo

@PeterC You cannot have a right wing dictatorship ! The extreme right is anarchistic – as in – no government and no rule of law ! The ‘left/right’ propaganda is to demonise those who disagree with the ‘basic socialist model’.
Dictatorship always stems from the ‘left’ of the political spectrum whether it be a single dictator or a ‘politbureaux’ or whatever………. always from someone (or a group) who tell you ‘they will provide utopia’ and rely on you to support the dream. At the other end of the scale (‘right’) you get pure anarchy whereby each individual provides ‘utopia’ for themselves – at ANY price. Neither extreme is desireable, though a tendency to the ‘self sufficient’ (‘right’) is much more desireable for an individual then the ‘state as provider’ (‘left’). Once the state gets to provide………. it also gives itself authority to take in order that it might give. Once people rely on the state they lose the ability to be self reliant. Thus now that virtually everyone gets some sort of ‘financial assistance’ from the ‘state’ nobody is prepared to have it taken away (often because they have paid for it already), see those who have contributed nowt getting handouts and feel that they should get something back as well. However, until those who do not really need what the state ‘gives them’ refuse to take it………… they and everyone else is ‘owned’ by the state………..bought and paid for with their own money :)

Of course it will all collapse when the state can no longer borrow more money, they cannot increase or invent enough new taxes to increase their take !………..Things will continue on the slow decent (which John alludes to above) until the ability to borrow becomes unsustainable………. at that point the government will print like there is no tomorrow (and there won’t be if they don’t !) They could sort it out if they didn’t look after ‘their sort of people’ first and foremost and bring the issue to heel in a week of emergency measures…. but it isn’t going to be a government like we have (anywhere in the west) which would do what needs to be done before the crisis starts killing lots of ‘unimportant’ little folk !

Quite right, right and left are only obligatory labels and have little more meaning than fascist and communist do, two sides of the same coin. Just like ALL UK governments and political parties since WW2 have been social democrat. Which is why I said it would make no difference if it was a left or right wing dictatorship.

Your point re self-sufficiency v government provision is very valid, it is what I was referring to when I described our society as neutered. When I was a boy in the 1950s I would estimate that, were there a ‘thrown back to the stone age’ event probably 80% of town dwellers and 95% of country dwellers would have been able to survive the loss of amenity and government direction, now I doubt 10% of town dwellers and 20% of country dwellers would, all because we no longer have the basic knowledge of necessities to enable us to procure food, provide shelter and cope with the natural world.

In essence, we will be thrown more and more back on to our own abilities. Those who instinctively and unthinkingly look to government for support in every aspect of their lives are in for a bit of a shock, to say the very least.

In a curious way, those who have lived lives of independent frugality and are used to surviving on bugger-all will be far better able to cope with the coming upset than those who have lived lives of cushioned plenty hitherto.

I share your optimism for the long term where people will live lives of comparatively harmonious society and interdependence. As Professor Dawkins observed in “The Selfish Gene”, good guys finish first. And he proved it mathematically. Those who seek to ignore that rule die out in the long term, and a Good Thing too, say I :-)

“while net National Insurance receipts this fiscal year are forecast to be £106bn, benefit payments will be not less than £207bn.”

Hi JW,

Doesn’t this just show the disconnect between the Benefit payment and the insurance originally designed to pay for it ? I don’t think this is really new, the gaps been widening since the welfare state was created. The difference is already being made up with existing taxes, predominantly Income tax.

You ain’t seen nothing yet if you think the current QE is destroying savings et al……….. fact is – you might just as well spend it whilst it is worth anything at all (not that I am qualified to give any sort of financial advise) because once those printers get into hyperdrive – you’ll get half a bag of scrumps with it and lucky to get those ! IMHO of course :)

I agree that the country is going further and further down the swanny, however it seems such a telling statement that all you need is about 2 acres of land to be self sufficient? Do you think anyone except super rich in generation Y can afford 2 acres of land?

We need skills again – Real skills!, not Qualifications which have been another terrible scam for my generation.
Electrical engineering, Welding, Food production etc etc need to be taught and learnt ‘On the Job’ as they were back in the day.

Sod our children and their future life as long as we can offord our houses and land and keep all the wealth locked up in assets, then who gives a shit right?? RIGHT?

Excerpt: Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov and Notes From The Underground:
Ivan speaking to his brother Alyosha, in The Brothers Karamazov:
“Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, [one child], and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions?. . . And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?”

The Underground Man speaking to Lisa, in Notes From The Underground:
“The thing I must have at any cost is peace of mind. To get that peace of mind, to make sure that no one worried me, I’d sell the whole world for a farthing. Is the world to go to rack and ruin or am I to have my cup of tea? Well, so far as I’m concerned, blow the world so long as I can have my cup of tea.”

John, how do you see the continued deliberate Islamification of the West impacting on this ‘bumpy ride’? I would appreciate your thoughts on this for I fear this is the greatest threat we face since the Nazis.

Islam and it’s followers have two purposes in this system. They provide a convenient “enemy” at which to mis-direct the ire of the “masses”. Your comments about the Nazis might be misplaced – “we the sheeple” will be told that it is the Islamic community that is taking our jobs, causing crime to rocket, threatening our women and children, and this will allow TPTB to have a convenient enemy, just as the National Socialist Workers’ Party directed the hatred of the German Volk against the Jews.

The problem is that in the short term, they will be right; Islam already has usurped the rule of law in some areas, and will increasingly take power as time goes on. My hope is that the women and gays of this country will save us – they will be the first to rebel against the madness of Islam. Whoever would have thought it?

If Muslims provide a convenient enemy for TPTB, why do said powers that be constantly seek to portray Muslims as so wonderful? Even to the point of covering up Muslim paedophile rings to protect the image of Muslims and multiculturalism?

No. Muslims and other Third Worlders were imported as allies of TPTB to break down Western societies by undermining people’s sense of identity. Much easier to manipulate a people who have lost their sense of nationality.

Where the elites have f*cked up badly, however, is that, rather than dilute the host people’s sense of identity, mass immigration actually sharpens it, as the host people begin to feel beseiged, threatened and minoritised. This sense of identity will only become more powerful as immigrant populations (and depradations) grow, prosperity comes to an end and the different groups are competing for dwindling resources. That is why nationalist parties – totally outside the increasingly discredited political class – are on the rise across Europe.

We may indeed see TPTB seek to divert the ire of the masses against Muslims. However this will only be once our political class realises that Muslims actually pose a threat against our elites in their quest to Islamify the UK, and that nationalist parties are threatening the status quo.
TPTB are too arrogant, however, to recognise the threat in time. They have miscalculated, and will eventually be swept away.

John, one thing I never see you refer to is State Banking, or public banks as they are also known. One shining example in the USA : North Dakota; and 20 other states now in the process of developing the same. Used by various Asian nations in the 1980s and 1990s, leading to recovery.

I recommend Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt blog as the best source of information on this.

John: One way of funding it that will probably come after the election is the merger of income tax and NI. Everyone will pay the one tax which means the basic rate will go up to 25 per cent and apply to all including pensioners. The merger was recommended by a high level group before the election and the present lot have it under consideration. It’s a matter of timing. Alan Johnson half endorsed the idea on This Week on Thursday.

This may well happen ! and then in 10 years time they will introduce a tax called ‘National Insurance’ – to pay for the Health service etc….

Remember how ‘road tax’merged into Vehicle Excise duty and became ‘just part of the taxation system………… now they are considering ‘road pricing’ again………. how many times do they repeat this scam ? Until there is no private wealth left………..

John, your point about society adapting to the new set of rules is rather relevant. I see it in the context of the EU, where I spend some months per year. Spain, for example, freely admits that the percentage of the coyly described ‘informal’ economy is about a quarter of the total. And that’s in a relatively well-behaved country. Greece is of course the worst of all, but Italy is said to be worse than Spain, as is Portugal. Once we sign up for fully-fledged membership of the EU, the UK will be exactly the same. Only those employed by big business or the state (not Brussels) plus pensioners will have to pay the official taxes. Everyone else will be on the fiddle, as of course many are now. I have long told my kids to start their own businesses because the effective tax rate after totally normal fiddles is far lower than that applied to employees. So what happens after that? Well, all you benefits recipients, there will be less cash in the state coffers. The 1% uprating is merely the start of a long taper downwards. And the UK’s pensioners will continue to be the worst supported in Europe.

There has been some abuse of Benefits in the UK , but we live in a civilised society, and don’t like to see homeliss, sick and starving people suffering.
The Government has many income streams, and more than enough to meet it’s obligations. The National Insurance levy was not intended to fund Benefits in the first place.
Government simply has to do what we all do at home – trim our needs to suit our budget. Unfortunately the addiction to Office by modern politicians generates promises that cannot be met.

Agreed; and that cannot be done while the EU remains such a costly drain on the public purse. We have to leave, and fortunately all economic data is forcing us towards this direction. If we were one big household (and in some ways, I suppose we are) then we would cut out unnecessary expenditure immediately. The EU, in any sane model (yes, yes, I know it’s asking a lot of our masters to be sane, but there we go) would be the first expense to be cut.

the solution is to remove the bankstas totally from the equation. The banking ponzi scam has successfully transferred the real wealth of the people to some psychopathic banking families who convince everyone that they, and only they, have the divine right to create money. Governments should create their own debt-free money. Whenever governments go begging to the central banksters they get the money created out of thin air to cover shortfalls in the welfare payments etc at compound interest. How is the money that is meant to pay off the interest created??

The welfare state was meant to fail, just as communist Russia was planned by Lenin to only last 70 years. The welfare state has now brought up two or three generations that are incapable of thinking for themselves and it is extremely difficult to get back to a previous time of self-sufficiency, we have to reinvent the wheel. This was planned of course.

Two acres is beyond the reach of most people, and moving people off the land as per Agenda 21 is designed so that people cannot look after themselves I have less than half an acre, some chickens and access to a river for water and transport if things get that bad. Even a small garden can support a few chickens, room for root vegetables and herbs, you have to get inventive and create container systems for growing produce. chicken shit can be used as a fertiliser.

Greece and other badly hit countries are beginning to resort to a barter system. Russia during the communist era had to do virtually the same, and bribery and the black market were everywhere because the Russian currency was always completely worthless. Russia was destroyed by the bankers, Europe is being destroyed by the bankers – can anyone see a common thread here????

We are being starved to death, health services in crisis, chemically poisoned by chem trails, dna destroyed by GMO foods, society breaking down etc, and we have non-entities like camerclegg laughing at us. Where is the line in the sand? Stop voting for these clowns. If no-one voted the government would be in crisis because they would no longer have authority – they fear that more than anything. People who still vote are just keeping the game going and are giving their consent to being treated like cattle.

I have 6 acres , a river , 3 springs and plenty of wood .
I grow all my own food and will be making my own fabric from home grown flax , hemp , cotton and wool . I can cure and tan leather and make footware and tack and gear for my horses . I have a forge that i run on charcoal made from home grown wood .
Home grown wheat will provide thatch as well as bread . I also grow oats , barley and rye .
I grow willow for fuel and to make baskets . The horses , sheep , cows provide all the manure needed for the veg plot etc . I can get oil from sunflowers , rape seed and hemp , the waste can be used as animal feed .
Herbs provide food as well as medicine . So not much (nothing) i need from tptb , and f eckall they will get from me !
I know i am lucky being able to have this and to be self reliant , but it has been really hard going to get to this point .

@minou999 and Rustyme
Nice to hear that you are self-sufficient. But when push comes to shove, the person who as the strongest right arm and a willingness to use it trumps all.
There was an article on holding gold on a US blogg, some one posted I have no problem getting gold when the time comes, “I have an AK47 and plenty of ammo,”
We currently live in a fairly civilized world, but JW is trying to point out we are on a slippery slope down to the survival of the fittest.

I am self reliant rather than self sufficient , but yes , i know the piont being made.
I iive in a very rural area of wales , no big cities anywhere near .
Although i am mid 50’s i am very fit and fully able to look after myself , my late dad was ex army , he taught unarmed combat to the sas and he taught me too , handy that !
If armed forces came for me , i would stand no chance , but why would they ?
No , it would be local villagers , if anyone , and i know most of them , and i have little to fear there .
My land is very well placed an easily defended.
I only have a longbow , but know how to use it .
If some form of total meltdown occurs , the window of the ones to worry about , being able to get to me , ie via vehicle , is very narrow . Fuel will go very fast .
People wandering in vast hoards looking for food , will most likely die before they get to me .
Those that survive then have to dodge the arrows lol .
Too many ifs and buts to go into really , but i am as ready for whatever comes , as i can be .
Mainly though , i just prefer to live a different way of life to the norm . A norm that will most likely change very soon . My lifestyle will carry on as is in the main . The only difference will be no mobile phone to connect to the internet .
The times they are a changing , oh yes , big time .